Student challenges media to fight bias, overkill
By Ruth Maher
Ruth Maher, a news-editorial junior, was one of the college's recipients of a 2003 scholarship from the Omaha Press Club. The press club asked that one UNL recipient make brief remarks at the awards dinner in April. Following is the text of Maher's speech.
I was asked to speak tonight about one major challenge facing journalism as a whole right now. The most timely concern for me, other than the ending of sentences with prepositions or the occasional misspelled word on the chyron, is war coverage.
I'm sure you've all had a lot of time to think about this lately, so I'll try to be brief. I'm just an idealistic kid preaching to the choir as far as you're concerned, but when I switch on my radio, flip through cable channels or glance at the front pages of some newspapers, I can see why a lot of consumers don't trust the media.
For all that we want to be the beacon leading to a new and more just society, there are pitfalls in time of war. Namely, bias and overkill.
Nobody wants to say that his paper or her TV station is biased, but I think to a point many lay people expect bias in a time of war. Only, they call it patriotism. It's an easy trap to fall into, after all. Most viewers and readers like to see an American flag prominently displayed or to hear the National Anthem. Nevertheless, I think we all need to hesitate before we pander to the audience.
Gallup polls last week showed 70 percent or so of Americans support the war right now. Sure it's a majority, but I think most people would agree that the other 30 percent is not a small number, either. Almost a third of the nation doesn't approve.
Since so much of what we read and hear is provided on a for-profit basis, I think the media, for lack of a more specific word, need to carefully balance stories. Being patriotic is one thing, but reporting only the good news is quite another. We need to be sensitive to everyone who's watching or reading, in my opinion, if not out of fairness, then at least to keep our appeal broader for advertising purposes.
After all, isn't it the government propaganda machine that our soldiers are fighting in Iraq? I hear this war called a battle for the hearts and minds of the people, who our government says have been brainwashed by state-run media. It would be more than a shame - it would be an outrage - if we allowed ourselves to fall into the same traps as Iraqi media by being too powerfully swayed by higher-ups.
For example, I read late last week in The Washington Post that McVay Media, a Cleveland-based consulting company sent a "War Manual" memo to clients, advising that radio stations "Get the following production pieces in the studio now: patriotic music that makes you cry, salute, get cold chills! Go for the emotion. Air the national anthem at a specified time each day as long as the USA is at war."
The same article talked about stations marginalizing the views of anti-war protestors to the point of flat out ignoring them in favor of advertising profits.
I don't think any station with a conscience would want their listeners to know that they play "I'm Proud to be an American" each hour on the hour not out of patriotism but to target a particular market share of war supporters.
Refusing to play the Dixie Chicks because their lead singer is opposed to the war strikes me as highly unpatriotic in a nation that values free speech as the first freedom.
I know it's hard to ignore those kinds of pressure, but I'm here to talk about challenges, and I think you'll agree, bias can be a big one.
Last week's Gallup polls show the war makes just as many people sad, tired and confused as proud and confident. I think that gives media an obvious challenge when we're trying not to alienate anyone.
The other challenge I wanted to address is the ever-present danger of overkill in a time of conflict.
Personally, on 9-11 I was more or less glued to the TV until about the time the evening news would normally have been aired. By then, I just wanted a break. I was tired of the carnage and not hearing anything new for hours. Quite honestly, there was nowhere to turn. Stations were either off the air or rehashing what had been said since 10 a.m.
It's easy to do. It's easy just to say that we're giving the people what they want. At least, some of the people. I heard a story on NPR last night about workers spending a lot of office time checking up on the war. Gallup polls show people are staying up later and spending more time in general watching war coverage. After all, it's on 24 hours a day, and they don't want to miss anything.
There is that satisfaction we all get from being the first person to know - whatever it is.
The sad part is, to fill in the 22-and-a-half hours each day where there isn't any fresh news, cable broadcasters begin to rely on commentary. Hours and hours of it. They can get the double ratings whammy of a celebrity talking about the war. But what are we learning from that? An impressionable TV-watching public is being spoon-fed the opinions of whoever has the time to come on air and share them.
What 24-hour stations have done, really, is made all of our jobs much harder. How can a once-a -day newspaper or three daily half-hour newscasts compete with the constant influx of fresh TV news? I say, by doing the same job better. So often on CNN or Fox news, you hear the words, "as yet unconfirmed." We can really shine because a once-a-day paper or three daily newscasts have time to go to the trouble of confirming facts.
We have the opportunity to take glitz and urgency out of news and leave the most important part: the truth. Readers and viewers trust us. They learn our names, they see us at the grocery store, and they don't expect us to lie to them. They don't expect us to be biased or petty. Everyone thinks his hometown media is the gospel truth and it's our obligation to live up to that expectation.
It's our job to put out the finest product we possibly can. In times of conflict, we can do that by fighting the temptations toward bias and finding ways to keep news fresh in all its outlets.
